Visit Olympia Site on 17th April

We visited the Olympia Site on a day when the blossom trees outshone the ruins. When planning your visit, make sure it is on 17th April when you are likely to experience the same marvelous combination.

The Olympic Games history is so well documented that the experts know how each square metre of Olympia was used. The games ran from 776 BC to late in the 4th century AD... with a bit of a gap in the middle... not bad for a cult to retain its following for over 1,000 years. Over a large ceremonial site there is one temple for every god you can think of. Of course, Rome had a go at running the show... choked the temples with their marble statues of politicians in togas (and shoved the buffed bodies of the Greek gods into the cupboard)... persuaded the Greeks to let them compete in the games... eventually overseeing the fall in popularity of the games. The noble goal of competing was replaced by the goal of winning. Emperor Nero fell into the latter category. He wanted to win the chariot race. He arranged for his chariot to have a team of 10 horses... while competitors were only allowed four. He stacked the stadium with his cheer squad. Unfortunately, he fell off his chariot during the race... but had the officials wave the yellow flag to slow competitors. He was able to get back onto his chariot and (guess what) win the race. What a hero!

Like every cult following, the Games eventually lost favour. The site had suffered a few earthquakes and needed a lot of work. New gods became popular... the youngsters wanted a change... you know how it goes. In 426 AD, Roman emperor Theodosius II ordered all the temples destroyed. Can you imagine anything dummer than destroying the most important site in European history? Earthquakes later helped finish what human hands had started, as well as flooding caused by a change in the course of the river that flowed through Olympia. The once-great city was eventually buried... saving a good number of relics from looters.

I know some people resent restoration work on ancient sites. There has been a little bit of restoration work done at Olympia... but there is so much art and bronze plate depictions of the site, the restorers didn't have to use too much imagination to replace the stones one upon the other. Probably, the restorations are pretty accurate.

I think Olympia is the best site of antiquity in Greece that we have seen so far... and Greece has the best sites in the world. So save your pennies and get over here to Olympia at this time of year.